G
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Z È R T Z
T Z A A R
Z È R T Z
D V O N N
P Ü N C T
Y
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Contents................................................... 3
Aim of the game...................................... 3
Preparation.............................................. 3
Information about the GIPF project:
games, potentials, digital versions
and more.
Making a move: placing a marble.......... 4
Making a move: capturing a marble...... 4
Isolating marbles..................................... 5
© 2016 Rio Grande Games
© 2016 HUCH! & friends
Author: Kris Burm
3D: Andreas Resch
Design: Kris Burm,
HUCH! & friends
Distributor:
Rio Grande Games
PO Box 1033
Placitas, NM 87043, USA
www.riograndegames.com
Editor: Simon Hopp
Made in Germany
Warning! Choking hazard. Not suitable for
children under age of 3 due to small parts.
Manufacturer:
Hutter Trade GmbH + Co KG
Bgm.-Landmann-Platz 1-5,
89312 Günzburg, GERMANY
End of the game....................................... 5
Special cases............................................. 5
Kris Burm
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Expanded board...................................... 5
Tournament rules.................................... 6
Blitz variant............................................. 6
2
Z È R T Z
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T Z A A R
Z È R T Z
D V O N N
A game about making sacrifices.
The third game of GIPF project. For 2 Spieler.
Strange …
A board that gets smaller
and two players playing with
the same marbles …
In the beginning you will have to
get used to it, but once you do, you
will find out that there are many
ways to get the game under control.
P Ü N C T
Play the right marble at the right
place at the right moment, and
you will be leading the dance!
Y
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A C O N T E N T S
- 6 white marbles
- 8 grey marbles
-10 black marbles
-49 rings
- 1 rulebook
- 1 bag
- This rulebook
BAIM OF THE GAME
You must try to capture:
- either 3 marbles of each color,
- or 4 white marbles,
- or 5 grey marbles,
- or 6 black marbles.
The winner is the first player to achieve one of
these goals.
CPREPARATION
In total you have 49 rings. To play the basic game
you need only 37 of them. (So, you do not need the
12 remaining rings yet. After having mastered the
basic strategies, you can use them to play ZÈRTZ on
a larger board. See: H. “Expanded board”.)
1/ Take 37 rings and assemble a hexagonal game board
with them.
2/ The 6 white, 8 grey and 10 black marbles are the “pool”.
Put the pool next to the board, so that both players can
easily reach the marbles.
3/Draw lots to determine who will go first.
D M A K I N G A M O V E
When it is your turn, there are two possible moves:
1/ You place a marble on the board and then remove
a ring.
2/You capture one or more marbles.
After you have performed one of the two possible
moves, it is your opponent’s turn.
Diagram 1: The board at the start of the game.
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Z È R T Z
Important: the marbles, in the pool as well as on
the board, belong to both players (i.e. neither you,
nor your opponent have your “own” marbles to
play with).
Possible Move 1: Placing a marble
1/When it is your turn, you first select a marble from
the pool. Next you must place it on the board. You
may select any color you wish and you may place
the marble on any vacant ring.
Diagram 2: only the rings with an arrow may
Possible Move 2: Capturing marbles
1/Capturing is compulsory. You must do it if you can.
2/ To capture a marble, you must jump over it with
another marble (i.e. as in checkers). You may only
jump over a marble on an adjacent ring. You may
jump in any direction if there is a vacant ring
behind the marble that you intend to capture.
3/ The color of the marbles is of no importance when
capturing: you may jump with any marble over any
other marble, no matter the color, no matter whether
you or your opponent placed it on the board.
For example: you put a white marble on the board.
A few moves later your opponent places a grey
marble next to it. There is a vacant ring behind
both marbles. You may select the option you think
is most advantageous: jumping with the white
marble over the grey one or the other way around.
4/If you jump over a marble and you have the
possibility to jump over a second one, then you
must do so, no matter in which direction you make
the second (or third) jump.
5/If you can capture different numbers of marbles
(e.g. in one direction 1 marble and in another
direction 2 marbles), you may freely chose which
possibility you will go for.
be removed.
2/After you have placed a marble on the board, you
must remove an empty ring. Empty means: the
piece must be vacant and it must be positioned at
the edge of the board. In other words, there may
not be a marble on it and you must be able to
remove it from the sides without disturbing the
position of the remaining rings.
2/Placing a marble and removing a ring is one turn.
You must do both. However, it may occur that you
cannot remove any of the vacant rings without
disturbing the position of the other rings. In this
case you must not remove a ring (i.e. your move
ends after having placed a marble).
Note: do not stack the rings that you remove on
top of each other. It is better to use them to
put your captured marbles on. (See: “Possible Move
2: Capturing marbles”).
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Z È R T Z
3
4
2
1
5
Diagram 3: the arrows below indicate the different ways
to capture.
1 → 2 and 3
1 → 2, 4 and 5
2→1
3 → 2 and 1
6/Capturing one or more marbles counts as a complete
move. In other words: that turn you may not place
a marble, nor may you remove a ring.
E ISOLATING MARBLES
1/If you succeed in isolating one or more rings
from the main part of the board, you may claim
the isolated pieces, including the marbles on
them. Most of the times it will concern one ring,
thus one marble, but it is not limited to one.
This “claiming” should be seen as a second way of
capturing marbles, but it is not compulsory.
of the players achieves one of the set goals, it is
the one who makes the last move who wins. In
fact, he may claim all of the remaining rings,
including the marbles, for this situation is to be
seen as an isolated group of occupied rings.
3/ If it would happen that two players start repeating
the same sequence of moves, the game ends in a tie.
Player B
1
2
4
3
Player A
Diagram 4: if you remove the ring indicated by the
arrow, you may capture the marble on the isolated ring.
Diagram 5: a bit of strategy. Player A is 5 marbles
2/ You can only capture marbles this way if there are
no vacant rings in the isolated group. So, you may
claim one or more rings when you either put a
marble on the last vacant ring of an already isolated
group, or remove the ring through which a group
of occupied rings gets isolated.
Note: you may capture marbles this way as a result
of a move; it is not itself a move.
behind, but he can win the game from here! He puts a black
F END OF THE GAME
1/As mentioned at the beginning of these rules: the
first player to capture either 3 marbles of each color,
or 4 white marbles, or 5 grey marbles, or 6 black
marbles wins the game.
H EXPANDED BOARD
ZÈRTZ was initially released with only 37 rings.
That is all you need to explore the game and to find
out how challenging it is. However, once you have
become an expert player you may want to play with
more rings.
But be careful! Playing on an enlarged board only
makes sense if you have first mastered the basic
strategies. ZÈRTZ is a fast and explosive game. If
you add extra rings too soon, you risk to turn it
into a long, possibly even boring game - and that is
not the purpose!
On the other hand, once you are familiar with the
principles of making sacrifices and long sequences
of forced moves, then you will find an extra
challenge in making the board larger. For example:
G SPECIAL CASES
1/ It may occur that there are no more marbles in the
pool before the game has ended. In this case you
must continue with your captured marbles. As with
selecting a marble from the pool, you may choose
any color of your captured marbles to play with and this goes on until one of the two players gets a
winning set of marbles.
2/ In the extreme event (not to exclude the possibility)
that all the rings were occupied before either
marble on ring 1 and removes ring 2. By doing so, he forces
Player B to jump over (and to capture) that black marble.
The fact that it is a black marble, means that Player B
hasn’t a winning combination yet. Then player A goes
again: he puts a white marble on ring 3 and removes 4. He
captures the 2 white marbles on the isolated rings and wins
with a set of 4 white marbles!
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Z È R T Z
you can add a row 3 rings at one side of the board.
3 extra rings do not add that much complexity, but
they change the board into an irregular hexagon
and that implies that you now have more different
opening moves. You can go one step further and
play with 6 or 7 extra rings. If you want to play the
tournament version, you must add 11 rings. The
more rings, the harder it is to control the game!
2
2
2
1
3
1
3
1
3
Diagram 6: to play with …
- 40 rings: add rings 1.
- 43 rings: add rings 1 and 2.
- 44 rings: add rings 1 and 3.
- 48 rings: add all the rings.
Note 1: you do not need extra marbles; the number
of marbles and the conditions to win remain
unchanged.
Note 2: the 49th ring is a spare piece. And you
may need it if you have the Potentials and want to
play ZÈRTZ with 24 extra rings.
I TOURNAMENT RULES
1/ Tournaments are played on a board that consists
of at least 48 rings. (If you want to play on a board
that is even larger than 48 rings, you will need the
Potentials. ZÈRTZ with 24 added rings, thus on a
board with 61 rings, may well become the ultimate
tournament version some day.)
2/ Handling the marbles and the rings: (a) once you
have taken a marble from the pool, you must play it
(i.e. you may not put it back and chose a marble of
another color), (b) as soon as you touch a ring with
the marble you play with, you must put it on that
ring, and (c) as soon as you touch a vacant ring at
the edge of the board, you must remove that ring.
3/ Capturing is compulsory, meaning that you may
force the opponent to take back their last move if
he did not do so. (Taking back a move includes
putting back the removed ring.)
For example: you put a marble on the board and
create an opportunity for a capture. Your opponent
does not capture; but takes a marble, places it on
the board and next removes a ring. You may have a
look at the new situation and either do the capturing
yourself, or force your opponent to take back the
move and oblige the capture. (If you do not ask
your opponent to take back the move and you do
not capture either, then it is your opponent who
may force you to take back your last move.)
J BLITZ VARIANT
This variant concerns the original “Basic Game”.
It is a short, very aggressive and unforgiving
version to play ZÈRTZ. It is played on a board with
37 rings, and with one marble less per color. So,
you only need 5 white marbles, 7 grey marbles and
9 black marbles. Now you must either capture only
2 marbles of each color, or 3 whites, or 4 greys, or
5 blacks to win the game.
Enjoy the game!
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